Norfolk Walks---Knettishall Heath

Our first time visit to the Heath

24/May/2015

Knettishall Heath...

We never visited there before, saw the sign and drove near by... So it was time for us to pay a visit. It's just out side Bury St Edmunds, we don't do enough walks around Bury. We almost not to go for walks either. Why? Because it was raining.

Well, if we use "raining" as an excuse for not to go for walks, i feel NEVER able to go out sometimes. Why? Because English weather is very changeable AND always seem to rain (and cloudy). I said this many times before, that is one of reasons why English people wear vest top, shorts and sandals even in cold weather as soon as the sun comes out. otherwise miss the opportunity don't you.

Anyway, for me, as long as I'm kitted out with waterproofs etc, I don't mind walking in rain (as you can see previous blog, We walked in heavy rain in France...)

I might refuse walks using excuse like; "I'm tired". When I use this excuse, I'm usually already grumpy with something or hungry. And chances are, once I have my food and drink, I will be fine for walks...

Anyway, Knettishall Heath was lovely. Well managed and maintained by Suffolk Wild Trust. Beautiful footpath and friendly walkers, and lovely trees... We loved it. I would like to go there again for picnic. There were some picnic benches. There are two car parks. One with small charge, one is free (with time limit). Very peaceful. Ideal for family too.  

Lovely coconutty smell

Knettishall Heath: "The open landscape of Knettishall Heath was created about four thousand years ago when our bronze age ancestors cleared the forest for cultivation and grazing livestock. Since then the land has been used for sheep and rabbit grazing."

Knettishall, Diss, Norfolk

• Tel:  01953 688265

Bluebells walk---Hillhouse Wood

10/May/2015

More bluebells! 

We went for walks to spend more time with bluebells. I didn't really want to do anything else but walking through the wood to submerge myself .....

And here I was, by spending time in lovely place like this made me really relax and recharge my battery, ready for another busy week!

More more people started coming into this wood to see them. Car park was full up and I'd never seen so many cars there. It was fairly sunny day that sunday. Lots of people came for walks.

Bluebells Walk---Chalkney Wood

9/May/2015

 I really didn't want to miss bluebells this year. I was really busy at work, not able to have days off on good sunny weekends, I was feeling a bit pissed off...Every weekend I had days off work were typically, raining.

So, that weekend I had my offs, really wanted to see pretty bluebells. Marcus knew I was beginning to get grumpy. It was lovely surprise he found somewhere to go and spend time with bluebells. By then, the most of bluebells were opened in lots of woods.

I felt very lucky to walk through pretty bluebell woods.

Good bluebells this year!

Here are some photos from Chalkney wood.

"The whole wood is 73 hectares of which 25ha are owned and managed by Essex County Council. The remaining 48ha are owned and maintained by the Forestry Commission.
The wood has probably been in existence since the last Ice Age. Having developed over 10,000 years it is rich in both history and wildlife. Within the wood there are the remnants of a medieval woodbank and a Roman trackway."

Chalkney Wood near Earls Colne in north Essex 

Long Weekend---St Guilhem le Desert

14-21/ March/2015

We always have companies of some animals. Last time we were there, we had some cats visited and played with us. In La Gomera, it was cats. In Greece, we had a naughty stray dog visited us. 

This time it was pigeons.

 Opposite house from where we we were staying, we noticed a few pigeons nesting under the roof. It looked like mama-pigeon and papa-pigeon. They sometimes brought twigs back to make their bed (I assumed). 

Me and Marcus mimicking how pigeons make noise ( I don't think it's "singing" like robins or blackbirds) to talk to them. But the most of the time we were ignored. 

Anyhow, during our stay, every morning, every night, we watched how those pigeons were doing through our window. It was quite good fun to watch, I never knew how pigeons were caring for one another. 

It was very sweet. Obviously they were in love. 


Back to my earlier story, about our landlord being really worried about his ornaments.  We saw those two ornaments and placed them on the windowsill. 

We didn't put them back to where they were originally...

That was why David was asking us where those bird ornaments went...

Long Weekend---St Guilhem le Desert

20/March/2015

Here's some photos from the village. It is a beautiful place, full of history, somehow makes me feel (not only myself also others too) I'd been here before, I always lived here... 

always want to put my feet in to beautiful water!

It was our last day in St Guilhem le Desert.... so we walked to the ruined tower along the river just outside the village. It's a part of GR74, leads to Pont du Diable.

Walked back to the village after pottering there. Entered into the Abbey. Last time we were there, almost every mornings we went to the abbey to listen nuns singing. I love it, it's very simple. Oh, I saw a oriental nun there. We looked at each other in surprise, not expecting orientals there somehow. We lightly greeted each other. We didn't speak, but felt like almost we didn't need to... It was lovely to see an oriental nuns, the abbey was very international! 

Lights coming into the abbey was beautiful. That inspired Marcus (he's a ex photographer) to take some photos. Here are photos we took, we posed!

Not bad photo, I took this!

By the way, we visited Pont du Diable a few times. Beautiful clear water. I'd love to visit again in a hot sunny day!

Pont du Diable

Long Weekend---Circular Walks: St Guilhem le Desert

Abbaye de Gallone a St Guilhem-le-Desert

Meown♥️

19/March/2015

That was the day I was waiting for a year. Do the orange footpath we could not connect last year. I was ready to do the whole walks. But, we looked at a map, and worked out we were close, very close to connect and finish the orange footpath. We asked some locals and even at the tourist information about the footpath, no one knew what we meant. Funny enough, when we walked up to the ruined chateau, the orange footpath disappeared and pink footpath appeared. Who marked them? 

We thought local walking group people marked those markings so that they had variety of footpaths. Official ones are red and yellow footpath. Orange or pink markings, they are both marked along yellow footpath anyway. 

We kind of very relaxed about this walks to start off with, we only had a bottle of water with us, as you can imagine, we weren't going to do long walks. Anyway, started walking towards the roman bridge and followed the footpath. It came out to the service road. Then we saw the telecoms tower in front of us. Marcus asked if I wanted to see the goats, so we carried on the service road.... I took the lead, that was a mistake. We supposed to take the left turn to see goats towards Le Mont. I took the right turn didn't I, at the open service junction. 

So, I asked Marcus when we were walking about nearly an hour in, 

"I took the wrong turn didn't I?"

Why he didn't tell me earlier, I don't know. Anyway, we carried on walking, might as well do the whole walks again. 

That day, we walked, walked, walked and walked. 

We ended up walking the big circular walks, walks we did went through 2-3 different footpaths. It was fun. Saw orange footpath, and realised last time and this time, we did bigger circular walks than orange one. We finally connected the junction we lost! Hooooray. 

Were there some wild boars? Earth was digged up and also, lots of big holes were digged up by machinery. Were they looking for truffles? 

walked all the way!

Yey, the telecoms tower

When we were top of the mountain we saw the telecoms tower right in front of us. Decided to have a rest there looking the landscapes. We saw few walkers there, but not many.

Having a rest

Later we told David (our landlord) we walked to the tower and back, he didn't really believe us. 

When we came out to the service road again, carried on walking to the footpath we came out from and walked down to the village.

We did about 37km in 8.5 hours or so... We walked quick too, knew the footpath. And we only had small bumbags.... 

Going down now...

Dinner that night tasted even more delicious.

And slept really well.